Presentation for the MICDS Summer Teacher Institute, June 22, 2009, in St. Louis Missouri.

1. Network Literacy & the
Tools of Engagement
Alec Couros
MICDS - June 2009

2. #micds

3. Who is this guy?

4. Winners

5. Heroes

6. Open Courses

8. Who are you?
Thoughts & experience re:
on technology & learning?
What do you feel have been the
big changes wrt education?

9. Knowledge

10. Knowledge & Computing

11. Shifts in Education
Group growth
Individual growth
Objectivism
Cognitivism
Constructivism
(Leinonen) (Schwier) Social Learning

13. Power & Control

14. Power & Control

15. A Connected Reality

16. Key Questions
• what is k?
• how is k acquired?
• how do we know what
we know?
• why do we know what
we know?
• what do humans know?
• who controls k?
• how is k controlled?

17. Forms of Openness
open education
free software
open source software
open educational resources
open content
open access publication
open access courses open teaching
open accreditation

18. Influences

19. Available Tools

20. open content, access, Accessible Knowledge
publication, accreditation
how we view learning -
institutional & informal

21. Social Reading

22. Toward Web 3.0

23. How do learners deal
with the reliability of
information? How do we
verify what is ‘true’?
How do we manage the
ever increasing flow of
information?

24. Social Networks

25. Social Networks
• redefine communities,
friends, citizenship,
identity, presence, privacy,
publics, geography.
• enable learning,
communication, sharing,
connections, collaboration,
community.
• networks formed around
shared interests & objects.

28. Human Network

29. Netbooks - 1:1

30. Microblogging

31. Nearly Now

33. As we approach a reality of reduced physical
boundaries & greater connectedness, what
are the professional & pedagogical challenges
faced by teachers? How do we overcome these?

34. Personal Learning Networks

35. The Way We Were

36. Rise of the PLN

37. My Blog, My Hub

38. Photo Sharing

39. Video Sharing

40. Spontaneous PD

41. Social Network Services

42. Slide Decks

43. Copyleft

48. How should schools deal with
content ownership, student
publishing, & sharing? Also,
what are the benefits and/or
drawbacks of sharing &
openness in schools?

49. Media Literacy

50. Media Literacy
• Accessing, analyzing,
evaluating, and creating
messages in a variety of
forms.
• Enable skillful creators,
consumers, and
disseminators of media.
• Facilitate an
understanding of
strengths, weaknesses,
and influences of media
forms.

51. Offensive Content

52. Offensive Content

53. Offensive Content
http://www.dogpile.com/info.dogpl/searchspy

54. Critical Thinking

55. Critical Thinking

56. Critical Thinking

57. Critical Thinking

58. Critical Thinking

59. Critical Thinking

60. Cyberbullying

61. Each technology
creates a new
environment.
The old environment
becomes content for
the new environment.
The effects of media
come from their form
not their content.

64. Spread of Media

65. Viral Videos

66. Spread of Choice
Control & Media

67. Sociality

68. Disruptive Forms

69. Surveillance Society

70. Transmedia

71. What are strategies for
understanding new &
emerging media? How do
we become participants?
How do we encourage and
assess new forms of
creativity in our
classroom?

72. In Practice

73. Grade One - Expert Visits

74. Grade Five - Choir on Youtube

75. Grade Seven/Eight - Classroom Studio

76. High School Math - Scribe Posts

77. University History - Twitter

78. Virtual Office Hours

79. Field Experience

80. Mindsets, Skills, Perspectives

81. lightbulb
vs.
ipod
Understanding Media

82. Impact of Learning Environment

83. Small Tools, Loosely Joined

84. Distributed Conversations

85. Open Intent

86. Sharing by Default

87. Expert Visits

88. Support
Private Public
Closed Open

89. Professional Learning

90. New Roles for Educators

91. Outreach

92. sustained community Benefits
transformative experiences
gained technical skills
media literacies
move toward openness
empathy toward new literacies
greater community

93. “I was able to go out and learn
throughout the entire week,
the entire year, and I’m still
learning with everyone.”
“The best part of the course
is that it’s not ending. With
the connections we’ve built,
it never has to end.”

94. “The course ... has been the most profound pd experience
I’ve ever had. It forced me to critique & review my
practice. I never knew how important social networks
were. Now, I couldn’t be a teacher without being
connected. It’s drastically changed my view of education.”

95. What do you want
to learn today?

96. Don’t limit a child to your
own learning, for he was born
in another time. ~Tagore
web: couros.ca
twitter: courosa
google: couros
alec.couros@uregina.ca